A story of how the games you buy disappear in a puff of smoke

Many, many years ago, I bought some games via the "Stardock service" - Galciv2, I think, Elemental, then it became "Impulse" store, I bought some more games, notably Sword of the Stars, and Divinity 2, and then it was all sold to Gamestop. I did not like Gamestop one bit, but okay, at least I could still download the games.

But this year, after fresh Win 10 reinstall, I wanted to redownload Gamestop client and download Sword of the Stars which I liked a lot, only to find out that the Gamestop website is gone, the client is gone, the whole company is probably out of business, and my "ownership" of said games probably null and void.

It's a very good lesson learned - steam games, or any other "online" provided games can disappear any day, for any reason, and online services taken as granted can be denied for whatever reason. Only what is in your local storage, or on install files like those from GOG without strings attached counts.

kamamura: your Stardock games are available direct from stardock.com . Just login and download them. I also lost SOTS and other games from there but have the 1 I can't find anywhere installed on my PC (and still working). I re-bought what wasn't redeemed on GOG and forgot what else I got from them.

i have the exact same problem i have 4 games on gamestop, 2 of which are on stardock sins of a solar empire (which doesn't work on win 8.1), sins entrenchment (which does) balders gate 2 and dead rising 2 (afaik dead rising 2 can be transferred to steam (like arkham asylum and arkham city) i wanted to do that with dr 2, but i moved from vista to 8.1 and forgot to back up the app and after a couple of days, most of the files / programs disappeared from windows old

at the store it says games purchased before april 24 2014 need the gamestop pc client "here" (as a link), but that just sends you back to store front, either they don't know the link is still there or don't know it's broken, or just don't care, anyway after much googling, i found a guest email form, so i left a query and got an auto response back saying they'll get back to me as soon as possible,

Anyway, from the guys that wrote the gamers bills of right and that pushed for drm-free, uninque ownership and that wanted to be relevant in the gaming industries, they are one of the few that managed to actually lose their customers hard earned games (after selling them to another company). That's something.

To be fair, users also complained back then. It was a bad and anticonsumer move to sell the store along with users data. And an hypocrisy after all the statements that were done by the company prior to that move. It hasn't been the same to the public eye since then as most of its credibility has been lost.

I don't think there's an expiration date for complaining. To be fair, Stardock often likes to remember its past accomplishment back since OS2, so I don't think that remembering one of its failure from less than ten years ago is a bit much.

But regardless the user effort, those games couldn't have been acquired permanently as they needed Impulse or Gamestop app in a working state to install (or restore from a backup, which I have).

To the users above: the Gamestop app installer was a webinstaller. It's a small executable that try to contact a server to download the real application, so even acquiring that installer is useless now that the service is gone. And even after that you still need a service that authenticate your credentials, which is probably gone as well.

I dont care abou the mainstream games I bought, I got them on steam anyway. But there were some independant games, which I owned, which I could not even name. But I'd lvoe to go back and maybe play them again... oh well. Live and learn. I only consider games bought off steam as rental, and I am only willing to pay for them accordingly.

To be fair, that would seem to have been the appropriate time to do so. Nothing left but the bones of this horse.

Just MHO.

You are arguably right.

I'm still curious if someone managed to get a reply from gamestop or manager to retrieve their games. Some of them weren't available elsewhere.

The only reply i got was something like sorry for the delay in our reply, please let us know if your issue has been resolved., reply to this email or click the link below to add comments

i replyed, with no my issue has not been resolved, (+some extra comments, etc, etc)

i heard nothing for ages and then the ticket was closed, but there was still an option to reply (or click link), so i did both twice, (including yesterday, when i was notified about activity on this thread, (which reminded me (i had forgot))

i have 4 games on there, luckily ican download sins and sins ent from stardock (the sins version on stardock doesn't work on win 10 but luckily again i still have that on disc

but i still can't get dead rising 2 and baldur's gate 2 complete, as they were only downloadable from the app, i'm not even expecting a reply really

Edit: i just tried to look at the gamestop site and was blocked by security rules lol, (i went to the site earlier this year)

Edit 2:Oh btw, the extra comments (email reply and add comment link) both got an auto response, ticket number: xxx , has been received, so the support server is still there

Between Steam sales and Origin Access there's hardly a game you can't find, and if you can't there's the sites that still support really old games (at my age, GalCiv 2 is a "recent" game!) for free with DOS simulators, etc.

If it's on Steam and you want it, add to your favorites and like magic it will go on sale for you.

I've played PC games since PONG on the C-64, and going back to really old games is usually a flat experience, unless you still play similar games, big difference between side scroll and FPSs.

You are right about Stardock having a rough ride, but I've stuck with them for both games and Windows programs, which I still use every day. Hope you all find what you are looking for.

Now the help desk has been closed, i googled around and found a new one but i don't really trust registering, (anybody could put up a web site saying Gamestop help) and i've read rumors of them being in trouble and close at any time, so it seems i've run out of options

Yeah, i just relaized since DMC5 is coming out that i ordered DmC4 here, and never got around to actrually playing it so i went to try and play it.... but couldnt fin d where it was. Turns out that stardock sold the GFWL version, so i paid for something i never even played.